Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Welcome. Could you please state your name for the record?”

“Booster Gold. Uh. Ma’am.”

“Who?”

“Alright,” Clark said, cutting into the conversation before the room got away from them. The Bats remained silent in the wake of Tim’s outburst, blank lenses turned, unerringly, in Booster’s direction.

“Should I…” Booster gold gestured at the file Clark was reviewing. “Do you want me to just, read it?”

“Why don’t you just tell us what happened from start to finish?” Clark asked. He flipped open to the timeline he and Diana had marked down.

Complainant: Michael Carter (Alias: Booster Gold)

Incident Date and Time: 04/05/26, Earth Standard Cycle. 23:04:51 Earth Standard Time.

Complaint: Bodily injury inflicted by a teammate. Preliminary investigation findings include significant bruising and bleeding to complainant’s left cheek and temple. A brief period of unconsciousness was also reported.

“Well, I was on a joint mission,” Booster began, leaning back in his seat. “Batman and I were in Star City tracking a child trafficking ring. We got a hit up on a roof downtown. Some sort of bug Batman got onto one of the suspects, So we were following that, and then we found some kids up on the roof.”

Booster paused for the appropriate amount of theatrics, glancing at the crowd. Several junior heroes were watching him with rapt attention, like they were hanging on every word. Clark surmised they probably were.

“The guy was also up on the roof with a machine gun or something crazy like that,” Booster continued. Clark didn’t miss the way his eyes kept landing on Alfred in the first row. “Batman took care of him. While he was doing that, I went to get the kids out. There were three of them up there, so I was working to get them out of the chains when this all…happened.”

Someone in the Bats’ section coughed into their modulator. The cough sounded an awful like bullshit to Clark’s ears, but before he could reprimand the room, a hand went up.

Alfred’s gloved hand clenched into a tight fist next to his shoulder, hold in Bruce’s battlesign. His lenses were trained on Booster, giving him no reprieve even as the Bats quieted.

In the seat next to him, Bruce sat up straighter, rolling his shoulders back to appear slightly larger. The attempt to direct attention to himself failed as Alfred, in turn, shifted in his seat at the same time, blocking him from view.

Possessive, Clark thought, watching the miniscule microexpressions that even Alfred couldn’t fully hide. The slight tensing of his jaw. The core muscles that flexed under his tac vest. His boot treads that caught the carpet at an angle designed for sudden, quick movements -- should they arise.

Booster stared at Alfred in lieu of Bruce, visibly confused, before continuing. “I was…yeah, so I knew we had to fly the kids out, and since Bats--”

Jason leaned forward, resting his massive arms on his knees. Booster swallowed, quickly amending the sentence.

“And since Batman only had his rope thing--”

“Grapple gun.”

Heads turned back to Dick, who merely crossed his arms, expectant. Clark glanced at Diana, who gave him a small quirk of her mouth. Continue.

“Batman had a grapple gun…” Clark prompted. Booster nodded, finding the story again.

“So I knew I was going to be the one to get them out. I went to grab one of the kids to fly them off the roof, and bam,” Booster smacked his hand on the conference table. “Knocked out, on the ground bleeding. He hit me right where the suit doesn’t cover my face.”

“Damn right he did,” Steph muttered. Clark gave her a warning look, then turned back to Booster. He reached for his pen, preparing to add more details to the account as they came up.

“Batman hit you?”

“Sure did.” Booster tilted his own head from side to side, displaying the massive bruise between his cheekbone and jaw. “Got me half in the ear, too. Everything was ringing for days. Massive concussion, too, but I’m pretty sturdy. Not the worst punch I’ve taken.”

The room broke into a smattering of chuckles and applause. In contrast, Alfred’s upper lip began to curl into something that was almost a sneer. Offended on Bruce’s behalf, or perhaps just disappointed with Booster’s dramatics. Not disappointed -- disgusted.

“Is there anything else you’d like to add to your statement?” Diana asked. Her eyes were constantly flicking back and forth between the Bats and Booster, likely tracking the same thing he was.

“Add to my -- yeah, I guess I just wanna say,” Booster pointed directly at Bruce -- or where Bruce would have been, if Alfred hadn’t immediately blocked his view. “He left me up there, too. Sure, it’s one thing to hit me, but then he just…left me behind? I woke up and all the kids were gone. There wasn’t a note, or a comm, or anything. I had to fly back up here to find out what really happened.”

A pit of disappointment Clark had been trying to ignore for the last several days began to widen in his stomach. Bruce wasn’t the type to leave teammates behind -- Clark had seen him drag and carry a half-dozen metas back to safety in one League conflict alone -- but he also wasn’t keen on waiting if lives were at risk.

“You believe the attack was unprovoked,” Diana surmised. Booster nodded.

“I didn’t do shit. That punch came out of nowhere.”

In Clark’s peripheral vision, Alfred’s hand shot up again, clenched into a white-knuckled fist. Again, the simple hand sign forced silence from the Bats. Hold.

“Did you two have any sort of conversation leading up to this moment?” Clark asked. “Any sort of disagreement, any warning sign about what was about to happen?”

“Fuck no,” Booster said, jerking his head from side to side. “I was just trying to do my fucking job, okay? And he--”

“Language.”

The single word stopped Booster in his tracks, echoing through the room despite its soft delivery. Alfred lifted his chin as League members turned around in their seats, owning the admonishment.

No one spoke up. The chill of one singular word was more than enough.

“Please allow our complainant to continue uninterrupted,” Clark said to the Bats, refusing to make eye contact with Alfred. He wondered, right then and there, if Bruce had provided any sort of rationale to his family about the incident. Or if the Bats were possessive of one of their own -- something that occurred frequently -- and viewed any sort of external oversight as overreach.

“Right,” Booster said awkwardly. A line appeared between his brows, visible through the yellow glass of his goggles. “I was just doing my job, and I got hit. I’m fine, but I’m also pi -- upset. I didn’t deserve that.”

“No one deserves to be hit,” Diana rebutted, without agreeing one way or the other. “Especially by a colleague.”

Tim turned to Steph, stage whispering over his glove.

“Some people do actually deserve to get hit.”

“Please, no more interruptions from the audience,” Clark said, feeling the control of the hearing slipping away from him. When he glanced at Alfred, checking to see how he was handling the outbursts, the man gazed back at him, hands loose in his lap.

Well, Clark thought. That’s not a good sign.

The silver lining of it all was Bruce, who hadn’t spoken up once during the account. Clark hadn’t expected him to, even though he could feel the undercurrent of tension running through Bruce’s body in his own teeth. Coiled up resignation, a simmering anger blotted out by a pot’s lid, but not dampened.

Even so, if Bruce was tense during the proceedings, Alfred was furious. An impressive amount of animosity exuded from him, considering he hadn’t moved beyond correcting the Bats. The Bats who hadn’t looked to Bruce for direction, but rather to Alfred -- the one man who held control over an entire city’s worth of vigilantes, including Batman. All with one hand movement.

“Thank you for providing testimony,” Clark said to Booster. The words felt dry and overly formal in his mouth. “You can sit with the audience if you’d like.”

Booster got to his feet, pushing off the table with both of his hands. He sent a curious, if wary, glance over to Alfred, then found a seat in the front row. The junior League member next to him grasped his hand, squeezing it in support.

This still doesn’t sound like Bruce, Clark thought. He swallowed, feeling a sense of dread for what came next.

“I have more on the way. Do not close this Zeta tube for any reason. Understood?”

Jenna stared at the cow stuck between the elevator doors, at a loss for words. The cow stared back with wide, unfocused eyes. It had no idea why it was up here. Neither did she. They made an unfortunate pair.

“And the cow’s…” Jenna trailed off as the child puffed up again, “Batcow’s purpose for visiting?”

“To witness a significant miscarriage of justice.”

“Here?” Jenna asked. The smaller Bat-child -- it had to be one of Batman’s -- jerked his head toward the double doors behind her.

“Ttch. In the Founders Hall.”

“So not here,” Jenna confirmed. She glanced at the doors behind her, then back to the unfortunate cow. “I’m not sure it--”

At the first sign of the Bat-child puffing up again, she backpedaled.

“--he will fit through those doors either, to be honest. And that’s if we can even get him unstuck.”

“He’s not stuck,” the Bat-child defended, as if saying something so definitively made it true. “He is wary of the energy and lack of personal responsibility on this satellite. As he should be.”

The cow -- Batcow -- mooed softly, as if on cue. Jenna met its eyes, mirroring the hopelessness she saw there. Cows had never struck her as particularly intelligent, but this one was clearly pleading with her.

“He senses fear?” Jenna asked. It was almost a joke.

The Bat-child huffed. “Are you afraid?”

Definitely one of Batman’s, Jenna thought to herself. “Not currently, no.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about.”

Diana suggested a brief recess, which, while well-intentioned, only made the pit in Clark’s stomach ache even more. Fifteen minutes would only drag the feeling out even further. Delaying the inevitable.

As he positioned himself in the aisle between the two parties, he saw Dick walking in his direction. The crowd split around him, well aware of the respect and reputation Nightwing carried with him anywhere he went.

“You know this is bullshit, right?” Dick greeted him, not bothering to lower his voice. He punctuated the question with a tight, breezy smile. Charismatic, even as that charisma had been sharpened to a point. It was utterly Bruce-like, and Clark had always privately thought so.

“Nightwing--”

“No, really,” Dick cut in, waving off his explanation before it could start. “He spends all these years practically pouring himself into the League and this is how you repay him? By letting Booster Gold use this for his next run for the oversight committee?”

“He had a legitimate complaint. And Batman had the chance to make a private statement,” Clark said. The words were hollow even to his ears. “He refused to give his side of the incident when we--”

“You didn’t even ask him what happened,” Dick interrupted, voice lowering. He leaned in, looking directly at Clark through his lenses. “You and Diana marched in there and badgered him about a suspension. Do you know what a suspension would do to him?”

“I do.” Clark said, unable to grasp a more eloquent answer. “I do know that.”

“You weren’t going to give him a fair chance to explain, so he didn’t. Can’t say I blame him at this point. This circus is barely one step above a Kangaroo Court.” Dick crossed his arms. “And let me tell you, boy do I know circuses.”

Clark grimaced. Yeah.

“He wrote the framework for this reporting process. He even created the incident form Booster filled out. He knew exactly what was going to happen the whole time.”

“Yeah, you guys were going to suspend him from an organization he put his life into,” Dick hissed. His fists clenched at his sides, betraying the slight tremor running through his body. “Do you know what this means to him? Do you?”

Dick’s further advance into Clark’s space was cut off by a gloved hand. Alfred gently pushed Dick’s shoulder back, guiding him away from Clark. The singular touch was all it took -- the anger went out of Dick’s body all at once, though his fists remained clenched.

Clark was face-to-face with Alfred in the span of seconds, feeling smaller than he’d been for a long while. He had to look up slightly to see Alfred’s face because of the boots. Or maybe because Alfred was standing so straight and stiff-backed, instead of his typical deferential posture.

Meeting Alfred at this point felt like meeting a former ally-turned-enemy. But despite the Bats’ misgivings, they weren’t on opposite sides. Not for this issue.

“Superman.”

The word was crisp and dismissive. Clark fought the urge to look at his feet, giving a slight nod instead.

“Do you,” he cut off, trying to pick his words carefully. “Do you know why he opted for a public hearing? Why he won’t tell us what happened?”

Do YOU even know what happened? he wanted to ask. Did he trust you with that when he couldn’t trust me?

Alfred held the moment around him as self-assuredly as a king. His head angled to the side, a perfect mirror of Bruce’s own questioning tilt.

“Internal misconduct is an auto-suspension per the bylaws,” Clark defended, anxious. “The fact that we’re having a hearing at all--”

“Is it?”

Clark blinked. “...What?”

“Internal misconduct,” Alfred repeated, his tone scraping at the edge of laconic. “Is that what it is?”

“Hitting a teammate is, yeah.”

“Then I suppose you’ve investigated thoroughly and have compelling evidence to guide your decision making,” Alfred said softly. His eyebrows twitched behind the mask. “Excuse me.”

Clark watched him go, the pit in his stomach widening to now include Alfred’s obvious disappointment and disapproval.

He pretended not to see the way Bruce’s head dipped just a little as Alfred rejoined him in the front. Whatever they said to each other wasn’t for Clark’s ears, and he gave them the decency of ignoring it. But for a moment -- just a moment -- Clark could see how Bruce leaned toward Alfred, a small waver that was swiftly corrected. They didn’t even need to touch.

When Clark looked away, seven sets of white lenses were trained on him, watching as he watched Bruce.

“--and whatever was said, the violence was well-founded and justified,” the Bat-child said, still using his back to push Batcow forward like the cow had a fighting chance. “To say otherwise is simply unacceptable.”

Jenna wiped a sweaty chunk of hair away from her eyes, doubling her efforts against the elevator wall. The more she pushed with her legs, the more Batcow mooed. Unhappy moos, despite the several treats the Bat-child had plied him with before the pushing.

“He doesn’t seem like the kind of person to randomly whack someone,” Jenna agreed breathlessly. She shoved against with her feet, getting another unhappy moo for her trouble.

“Whack?” the Bat-child repeated, clicking his tongue. “He would never kill someone. You clearly don’t know his character at--”

“Whacked,” Jenna repeated, miming whacking Batcow’s flank. “Just a good old whack. He doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy who’d do that, is what I’m saying.”

The Bat-child stared at her, unimpressed.

“In Gotham, that is a synonym for contract kills or assasination.”

Jenna grunted, giving another valiant push against Batcow. Her feet were beginning to slide against the wall, losing traction. “It’s an onomatopoeia.”

Batcow mooed again, as if chiming in. It was a resigned kind of moo, like it had already made peace with living the rest of life between the Watchtower Zeta-1 elevator doors.

“Batcow knows he is innocent,” the Bat-child said decisively, crossing his arms. “He is a near-perfect judge of both character and justice.”

Jenna clenched her abs, pushed from the very base of her flats, and felt something begin to give on Batcow’s left side. A tiny sliver of movement.

“And how does he feel about being stuck in the elevator?”

The Bat-child turned to Batcow. “Well?”

Batcow mooed one singular, sad note. Jenna rubbed his flank, feeling just as sorry as he was.

“Let’s try the other way.”

“If we could all take our seats again,” Clark called out from the head of the table. “Seats, please. Thank you.”

For the third or fourth time, he wished Bruce was in the middle chair between them. Diana commanded respect no matter the occasion, but Clark was floundering without Bruce’s counsel. He often said little during personnel hearings, largely because he didn’t have to. The silence intimidated even the most bold into the truth. Or some version of it.

“Next we’ll hear from the alleged--”

“Bullshit.”

Clark looked up from the folder, making direct eye contact with Steph. Her eyebrows raised in response, as if to say so what? or even what are you going to do about it?

“Next,” Clark tested, watching her carefully for another outburst, “we’ll hear from Batman. If he’d like to provide testimony, that is.”

Bruce remained in his seat, stubbornly silent. Alfred’s glare was impressive, even half-hidden by the domino mask. Ten seconds into the silent argument, Bruce stood up, admitting defeat.

Alfred settled back into his own seat. Clark didn’t think he was settled for a second. As Bruce took his seat at the other end of the conference table, Alfred leaned in, preparing for war.

Clark cleared his throat, trying to ignore the blue and pink arm suddenly poking out from under Bruce’s cape. It was more of a tentacle, really, and it threw off his train of thought for a good three seconds.

“Booster Gold informed us that--”

“Who?”

Tim’s stage-whispered question bounced off the walls. A few heroes looked uncomfortable. The Bats, in comparison, were a laundry list of smirks, grins, and amused exhales.

All of them, save for Alfred, who was watching the proceedings with blank, banked fury. Who had positioned himself more as a guard than an adoptive father or mentor. Who was currently watching over Bruce’s end of the table like something sacred was seated there.

It was just enough heckling to be disruptive without deserving an outright dismissal from the hearing. Booster had his own fans in the crowd. Bruce’s group just happened to be more…determined.

“Batman,” Clark re-started. Bruce did not return his nod. “Please give us your version of events, from start to finish. Just like Boos--”

Alfred’s hand shot up, clenching into a fist. Tim’s jaw snapped shut so hard, Clark heard his teeth click against each other.

“--ter Gold.”

“Please give us your version of events,” Diana repeated, taking over. Unlike Clark, her nod was actually returned, even if it was a shallow effort. He could practically hear Bruce’s voice. Princess.

“I have no need to explain myself.” Translation: I don’t have to explain myself to you.

The refusal was so quintessentially Bruce, it hurt. Clark nearly facepalmed. In the crowd, Barbara’s hand contacted her forehead with a loud smack, drawing Dick’s attention away from Bruce.

“You complied with the hearing notice,” Clark started, knowing he was on shaky ground. “But you don’t have anything to say?”

“My presence is required per bylaws in Section 1(a) 5.3,” Bruce said, monotone as he cited from memory. After a beat, his eyes lifted to Clark’s face, then back down to his hands. Assessing him. “My submission of testimony is not.”

In the back row, Cass made a furious, flurried set of hand signs in Bruce’s direction. By the way Duke’s eyebrows jumped up to his hairline, she wasn’t being polite.

Diana frowned, troubled by the response. “So you accept the proposed suspension as punishment for your actions.”

“No.”

Clark looked skyward, pleading with the stars beyond the Watchtower’s observatory. In the audience, someone -- it sounded like Ollie -- let out a bark of laughter.

Then what the fudge are we doing here?

A more direct approach was needed. Clark glanced at Diana, who nodded, her lips pressed together into an unforgiving line. Bruce was being difficult. And, frankly, Clark couldn’t really blame him. This was a fuckup. It was so, so clearly a fuckup.

“Did you strike Booster Gold in the face during your joint mission?”

“Yes,” Bruce said immediately. Behind him, the Bats perked up noticeably, enthused by the direct admission.

“In the same manner in which Booster Gold just described?”

Bruce remained studiously blank. One shoulder lifted an inch, almost a shrug for him. “I struck him in the face using my fist, yes.”

Diana’s frown had deepened, joined by new lines around her mouth. “And you abandoned him while unconscious as he described?”

Clark turned back to Bruce, certain this was the answer that had to give. Instead, Bruce nodded, damning himself.

“I did.”

Diana eyed him, reevaluating their next questions. When Clark gave a miniscule shrug, she continued.

“And do you have any explanation for these actions?”

“Rationale for my decision making, yes,” Bruce rebutted, painfully smooth. “As for an explanation -- that should have been immediately evident to the other party.”

In the audience, Booster Gold huffed, his chest puffing out as several eyes turned to him. “I need to explain that? I need to explain why you punched me?”

Bruce’s eyes remained on Clark, ignoring the question. Cass was signing something so quickly at him, her fingers were a blur.

“Why does Booster Gold need to explain?”

This, it seemed, was too far for Bruce, who looked back over his shoulder at Alfred. Whatever he saw there didn’t satisfy his search.

“He omitted critical details from his account and testimony today.” Bruce’s matter-of-fact tone sent whispers through the audience. “And his actions prior to the incident have been completely overlooked.”

“Sick,” Duke said under his breath. Tim was nodding along in approval.

“That is a serious accusation,” Diana said. Clark felt sick to his stomach as the two of them stared at each other. “Can you explain what was omitted?”

Bruce’s head tilted a fraction of a degree to the left, as if considering. “Yes.”

“Will you explain what was omitted?”

“If I am compelled to by the bylaws governing this body, yes.”

“You wrote the bylaws.”

Bruce didn’t blink. “Yes.”

This time, Clark did put his head in his hands. After a moment of sanity-seeking in the depths of his palms, he sat back up.

“Batman,” he said, feeling a shiver when Alfred twitched in his seat. “Tell us what was omitted.”

04/05/26, Earth Standard Cycle. 23:04:51 Earth Standard Time.

“I got it, I got it.”

Bruce retracted his grapple line, locking it back into the gun and returning it to the back of his belt.

The delay in his arrival had consisted of seconds, and yet Booster Gold had left him at the base of the building, ignoring his request to breach the roof together. He now, also, had his back turned to the rest of the roof, including the stairwell he’d noted in his mission brief.

The two girls were whole and hale in their chains, save for a few scratches and what appeared to be moderate dehydration. They were somewhat resistant to Booster’s cheesy jokes, despite his best efforts. Their eyes remained locked on the stairwell behind him, filled with fear.

Bruce moved across the roof with that sightline in mind, joining Booster near the far end. Unlike his partner, he didn’t turn his back on the stairwell. There were active hostiles throughout the building, something Booster would have remembered from his briefing, if he’d actually listened.

But he’d also trained 20-year-olds before, and could see the genuine desire to help in Booster’s actions. He likely wanted a flashy save, given it was Star City, which had certainly never lacked in HD security cameras. Yet underneath the flash, there was still a drive to help. A drive to comfort scared children chained to a drainage pipe in the middle of the night.

Within minutes of their arrival, Bruce’s lenses began to sense movement in the stairwell. He stepped forward, shielding Booster and the two children from view behind his cape.

The man who burst out of the stairwell carried a machine gun in one hand, clearly unused to the firepower he was slinging around. He opened his mouth, swinging the gun around as he spotted them.

Bruce kicked the gun up and out of the way, splattering the the night sky -- and not the children -- with bullets. As the man fell forward, still holding onto the gun, Bruce brought his knee up, striking the soft spot on the temple with the center of his knee guard.

The gun fell onto the gravel. Bruce kicked it out of reach, checked the stairwell again, and returned to Booster, who had found himself trying to calm two crying girls at once.

“--going to be okay,” Booster was saying, patting one of the girls on the arm. “You’re going to fly. Isn’t that so cool? Like Superman!”

“Don’t wanna,” the girl sobbed, trying to push his hands away. She was bright red and slightly sweaty from the exertion. “No. Noooooo.”

“It’s not scary,” Booster said, pointing at the night sky. “See those stars? I could take you up there. Flying is fun. That’s how we’ll get you home.”

The other girl gave Bruce a suspicious look, like he, too, was going to snatch her up and burst into the sky. To settle some of that apprehension, he lowered himself to one knee in the gravel, meeting them on their level.

“Do you feel okay?” he asked the other girl. “What hurts?”

Big, watery, blue eyes stared at him. “My l-leg.”

“Which leg?” Bruce asked, tilting his head. The two girls were tangled together in the chains, and it was hard to tell what belonged to who.

“My left leg,” the girl said. “And m-my -- and my hands.”

She turned over her hands for him to see, revealing the marks from the chains Booster had undone. A bright red stripe of broken skin encircled each wrist, still oozing slightly at the edges. Bruce reached in his belt for the analgesic gel from his medkit, grateful for the holdover from Dick’s Robin years.

As he applied the gel, Booster continued to attempt to calm the other girl down, taking her into his arms. When the assurances about flying continued to fail, he turned to Bruce with a grimace.

“I’m just gonna take her,” he said, gesturing at the girl with his chin. “You okay with the other one until I get back?”

“Please…” the girl sobbed against Booster’s shoulder, wiggling around. “No fly.”

“She’s just scared,” Booster explained. “As soon as we get her to her parents, she’ll feel better. Right?”

“We need to evaluate our options first,” Bruce said, refusing to sign off on Booster’s plan. “There could be more children or hostiles downstairs. As soon as you take off--”

“I don’t make that much noise,” Booster defended. He hiked up the sobbing girl in his arms. “Light feet, I promise. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Bruce spotted identical red wounds around the girl’s wrists, hesitating. “First aid before that. She could be in pain.”

“Sinai is right over there,” Booster said, indicating the sprawling hospital visible from the rooftop. “I’ll drop her off and they’ll give her the same sh -- stuff.”

“Booster.”

Booster ignored him. He clutched the girl to his chest, patting her on the back. “Okay, big rush of air in a second, then you’re flying. Get ready.”

What hurts?

My left leg. And m-my -- and my hands.

Bruce activated his flashlight, training it on the girl’s left leg. He spotted blood around the calf immediately, and then, sliding the light further down. What he saw there sent an icy stab of panic through his chest.

The world began to slow as he followed the chain from the girl’s leg to the drainage pipe. Then the drainage pipe to the handcuffs Booster had broken. And from there, to --

“Stop.”

Booster bent his legs, preparing to launch himself into the sky. The terrified girl sobbed in his arms, one leg dangling from his hold, forgotten in Booster’s haste to save the day.

A leg still chained to the drainage pipe and the other girl.

“Stop,” Bruce ordered, but Booster barely seemed to hear him. “Booster stop -- stop. Stop! STOP!”

In the split second before Booster finally took flight, Bruce’s threw a desperate, unrestricted punch, aiming for the same weak spot he’d targeted in the kidnapper. The margin of error was a fraction of a fraction. He’d gambled on a split second decision, successfully making contact just as Booster’s suit began to lock into its flight mode.

Pain exploded across his knuckles as they snapped into the soft skin of Booster’s temple. There was a nauseating give as the punch continued forward, snapping Booster’s neck to the side instead of to the back.

Time began to speed up again. Booster collapsed against the gravel, instantly knocked out. His suit flickered, then powered down entirely, disengaging from flight mode. The hit had caught him perfectly -- any higher and he would have caught his visor; any lower, and the reinforced jaw strap would have deflected the hit entirely.

The girl tumbled out of Booster’s arms and onto the gravel, stunned by the impact but unharmed. Bruce pulled his laser cutter out, slicing through the leg chains as quickly as he could without hurting the girls. Then, for good measure, the chain itself still wrapped around the pipe.

When the chains were cut, he exhaled, more relieved that he’d ever admit to. In the event that Booster woke back up and tried to fly away again, dismemberment was no longer a possibility. Two young, tear-streaked girls wouldn’t be pulled apart in the span of a single second.

A quiet chime in his ear indicated movement behind them. Bruce glanced at the stairwell, noting the lights making their way up to the roof. More men. And with them, more guns.

It was another split second decision to roll Booster over onto his side. When he was settled, Bruce hit the cloak button on his gauntlet, turning the suit -- and by proxy, the man inside it -- invisible.

The footsteps behind them grew louder. Bruce returned to the two girls, kneeling in front of him.

“Do you know how to do a piggyback?”

Silence fell upon the room, suffocating in its intensity. Clark wiped a hand across his face, resigned to the foolishness of his own certainty.

“And after that?”

“I carried them both off the roof using my grapple gun,” Bruce said, just as blunt as he had been throughout the story. “When they were secure with hospital staff, I returned to the roof.”

Diana’s jaw unclenched. “And then?”

“Booster was gone,” Bruce said, like it was barely noteworthy. “I received a notification he’d returned to the Watchtower and was being treated in the medbay.”

“Were you concerned on his behalf?” Clark asked, unable to stop digging. He leaned forward, anxious energy sparking through his hands. “You must have realized he was being treated for your injury.”

Bruce nodded once, almost solemn. “Yes.”

“To both?”

“To both.”

Clark turned in the opposite direction, finally giving into the inevitable. In the first row of chairs, Booster Gold was silent, considerably pale under his tan. The dark, ugly-colored bruise stood out even more against his cheekbone.

“Did you know the girls were chained together?”

Booster shook his head, wide-eyed. “No.”

“You ignored direct orders in the field not once, but three times,” Diana said, judgement plain as day in her voice. “Do you have any explanation for why that was omitted from your testimony?”

“I don’t.” Booster said, an admission all on its own. Clark let out a frustrated breath, trying to clear the frustration in his mind.

Why would you do something so stupid? and then, in Bruce’s direction: Why wouldn’t you just TELL us?

“Is this reflected in your mission report?” Diana asked Bruce, who shook his head. “Why not?”

“My goal was to address this incident through less…” he trailed off, glancing at the audience, “...public channels.”

Clark felt himself flush, heat rising in his cheeks at Bruce’s implicit condemnation. “To spare yourself the attention?”

“No. Not me”

Booster Gold sagged in his chair, still considerably white in the mouth and cheeks. Everyone in the room knew what that denial had meant.

Speaking of…

The Bats were watching in utter silence, even though Clark had been bracing for an outburst, or several outbursts. All of them wore the same disapproving expression. Except for one.

Alfred was still furious. Furious. But that fury had expanded like a newborn star, burning and all-encompassing. If anything, the testimony had only increased his anger.

“Do you believe you deserve a reprimand for your actions?” Diana asked, returning the room’s focus to Bruce.

“My beliefs have nothing to do with it.”

Jesus, Clark groaned in the safety of his own mind. You’re just making this worse.

“Would you comport yourself differently in the future?”

Bruce pretended to think about it, which was more generous than Clark had expected him to be. “No.”

Clark glanced at Diana, trying to make eye contact. After a silent discussion, agreement passed between them.

“Judgement is suspended for this hearing pending a review of testimony and evidence,” Clark said. He didn’t have a gavel or anything to hit, so he stood up, raising his voice slightly. “Thank you all.”

Predictably, Bruce immediately stepped away from the table, finding himself surrounded in a crowd of Bats. Dick was already well into some sort of statement, leaning in and jabbing Bruce in the chest as the latter remained still, accepting it.

“You know Nightwing’s on the warpath, right?”

Clark turned around, startled to see Jason so close. He hadn’t heard his approach, but then again, he hadn’t exactly been focused.

“What?”

“Nightwing is pissed,” Jason repeated, shrugging Red Hood’s intimidating shoulders. Under the hood, he almost looked amused. “At least you’ll see him coming. Probably. Hopefully.”

Clark’s eyes narrowed. “Retaliation?”

“Isn’t that what this was?” Jason bantered back, crossing his arms across his chest. He leaned back on his heels, giving Clark a lazy once-over. “Because he didn’t cooperate with your half-assed investigation. I wonder why he’d do that. Don’t you?”

Clark hesitantly looked over at Dick, who was still visible at the very least. “He contested the auto suspension.”

“Because you didn’t even let him defend himself,” Jason rebutted. Nightwing’s anger had reached a boiling point, but outwardly, Jason remained at the same level.

“We asked him--”

“No, you told him,” Jason cut in, shaking his head. “From what I heard, you held that suspension over his head and tried to bluff your way out. You don’t trust him.”

A sharp ache began in Clark’s chest.

“I trust him with my life.”

“That’s just dandy,” Jason said, rocking back on his heels. “I don’t trust you with his.”

The statement felt like a smack to the face. A hard one, too. Clark looked down at his feet, decidedly un-Supermanlike.

“He was just going to eat the suspension and move on, you know,” Jason added, like an afterthought. He waved at the table with a gloved hand, letting it fall to his side. “That’s how much he believes in this. All of it.”

With that, Jason folded back into the crowd of Bats, leaving Clark standing -- awkwardly -- on his own.

Near the far side of the room, Bruce and Alfred were standing together, a respectful amount of distance between them and the other Bats. There were few people in the world who could stare down Batman without faltering; Alfred Pennyworth was one of them.

Standing side-by-side, Clark idly traced out the similarities between their armor and clothing. Despite the differences in musculature and height, they held themselves the same way. Even so, Bruce’s shoulders were still ever so slightly bowed. Something Clark assumed Alfred was also furious about.

Their reunion was so intense, he almost looked away from the two men as it continued. Curiosity won out -- and so, apparently, did Alfred. Bruce was nodding along, drawing more attention to them than he realized.

Several audience members were still seated, looking back and forth between Booster and Bruce like they were expecting further play. The last thing Clark wanted to do was give them an encore.

“Hey guys,” he said, whistling for their attention. “Let’s get it moving. Hearing is over.”

Eventually, people began to filter out the door with varying levels of disappointment. Diana stepped out into the hallway with them, encouraging them to move along. Booster Gold was ultimately left alone near his original chair, making a show of typing into his wrist comm.

Clark swore he felt Alfred approach before he sensed him. Some sickly, electric feeling seized him by the spine, keeping him pinned in place. Prey waiting for a predator, even though he was still confident Alfred wouldn’t hurt him.

Permanently.

“Superman.”

Clark flinched as a hand settled on his shoulder, squeezing him the same way as Dick. But the reassurance and warmth in the gesture began to sink in, allowing him to finally relax.

When he looked up, Alfred smiled at him. Smiled, some implicit approval Clark would desperately call pride later that night. Justice had won out eventually. And Alfred had realized that too.

“I suppose this matter will be filed away without further reprimand.”

Clark nodded. “Yeah, I think at this point, we just need to document and move on. We clearly needed more information.”

“I see.” Alfred’s smile was tinged with worry. “And Mr. Gold wouldn’t face any sort of reprimand for his actions.”

“He might get a note in his file,” Clark said, uneasy and at ease at the same time. He smiled at Alfred, hoping to distract him. “Like a verbal warning, essentially.”

“A note in his file,” Alfred repeated. He patted Clark’s shoulder. “Thank you for explaining. I understand much better now.”

Nothing further was said, and Clark was grateful for the silence. Eventually, Alfred’s hand slipped off his shoulder, taking its warmth with it. Clark’s eyes moved to Barbara, who rolled forward to speak at him.

“I was wondering--”

Just as he was about to open his mouth, a sudden jolt of Booster’s heart -- typically steady, especially with the suit -- cut him off. The jolt became an increased heart rate and, after that, a hammering pulse in Clark’s ears.

“Oh, hey,” Booster Gold said somewhere behind him. A nervous chuckle followed on the heels of the greeting. “Are you going to hit me too?”

“Yes.”

Clark’s eyes widened as Alfred’s fist swung out, but it was already too late. Booster went flying back into the chairs, his face completely red on the left side. Bone on bone -- he could still feel the vibrations in Alfred’s fist and Booster’s cheekbone. It had hurt for both of them.

“Shit,” Jason said, not sounding all that surprised. “Someone should get him.”

“Booster Gold?” Duke asked, unsuccessfully trying to hide a smile.

“Who?”

Booster rolled onto his side, reaching for his gauntlet to try and activate his suit. Alfred rolled him right back into the metal legs of a chair, pinning his wrist and digging a knee into the small of his back.

Clark had only ever seen Bruce move that fast. And even then, it was a close race.

Diana stepped back into the room, eyebrows rising at the ongoing conflict. She stepped forward, as if to intervene, but Clark held out a hand, holding her back.

“Just let them handle this,” he murmured. “Trust me.”

Jason and Dick made no move to get up, watching the fight progress with rapt attention. Cass and Steph had changed chairs for a better angle. Duke gave him a shrug when Clark motioned at Alfred.

“B,” Barbara said softly. Bruce was to her right, observing the fight with a distant kind of horror Clark could relate to. After a brief pause, he nodded, stepping around Barbara’s chair.

It took Bruce physically lifting Alfred off his feet with a modified headlock for the fight to finally end. He didn’t fight Bruce, which was a silver lining to Clark. If anything, the physical contact seemed to calm him down.

Still on the ground, Booster groaned, clutching at his face. Clark couldn’t imagine what a new hit to the massive bruise felt like, but he was certain it wasn’t good.

“Medbay?” Clark asked Diana, who was staring at Alfred. “Diana.”

“I’ll take him,” Duke offered. He slapped his thighs as he stood up, moving comically slow. “Here.”

Clark held back an unintelligible noise as Duke lifted Booster by the back of his suit, slinging him over his shoulders in an effortless fireman’s carry. Booster’s cheek bumped against his shoulders, evoking an even louder groan.

“Sorry about that,” Duke said to Clark. It took Clark a moment to realize what he was apologizing for. “B is probably going to ask you to ban him.”

“I am happily banned,” Alfred said, still hanging from Bruce’s hold. His teeth were bright red from a fresh cut along his lip. “I will wear it as a badge of honor.”

The deep breath Bruce took after that was meditative. Clark was sure of it. And meditation-breaths meant bad news bears. Every single time.

Alfred bared his teeth at Booster the whole time it took Duke to reach the door. When he was gone, he slumped in Bruce’s arms, giving up the last of the fight. Quite wisely, Bruce still waited to release him.

Diana gave him one final look of disapproval -- this is your fault -- and followed in Duke’s steps, heading toward the medbay. Clark had no doubt she’d assemble an incident report to make Alfred’s ban official.

The bloody smile Alfred gave him when their eyes met spoke as clear as day.

Worth it.

Jenna heaved at Batcow’s flank, feeling the final few inches beginning to give. When the Bat-child paused, regaining his breath, she slid over Batcow’s back to reach the front of the elevator. She winced when her flats hit the tiles, feeling the impact in her back teeth.

“I’m going to try and pull again,” she called out to the Bat-child. She grabbed the loop of her cashmere scarf they’d tied around Batcow’s front legs. “When I say go, push as hard as you can!”

The sound of a raised voice -- faint, but identifiable -- reached her ears. Jenna turned around, shamelessly peering through the double door windows to see who was fighting. Again.

“I trust you,” Superman was saying, jabbing a finger into Batman’s armor. “I trust you--”

“Even when you investigate me? When you make a show of me in front of our League? My family? Who did that serve, Clark?”

Jenna pressed her lips together, snapping her head back around. It was hard to pretend she hadn’t overheard when their voices were getting louder and louder.

“I didn’t invite your entire family. You did that yourself.”

“I didn’t either!”

“Yeah, okay. But you brought Jarro.”

“Jarro. Doesn’t. Count.”

Jenna wound her hands in the scarf loop. “Okay. On three. One, two…”

On three, she yanked as hard as she could, putting everything she had into the effort. Batcow mooed as the Bat-child started pushing, deeply unhappy to be squeezed in any direction.

The scarf began to catch. Batcow moved another two inches forward, still mooing.

“One last push!” Jenna shouted at the Bat-child. “Push!”

Batcow suddenly jerked forward, free of the elevator doors. Jenna fell back on her ass, almost giving herself a friction burn trying to hold onto the scarf. At the very last second, she had the sense of mind to roll off to the side, avoiding Batcow’s hooves as they trampled her scarf.

The Bat-child cheered, but the cheer quickly became a warning cry. Jenna turned around just in time to see Batcow barrel through the double doors, mooing the entire way.

After a few undignified noises as the two were caught by surprise, a head poked through the double doors. Batman’s head.

Jenna felt the subsequent sigh in her bones. That, if nothing else, confirmed who the Bat-child belonged to.

“Did you bring Ace, too?” Batman asked as he stepped through the double doors, defeated.

“He is my next objective,” the Bat-child said sagely. “I assume Batcown made it to the Hall on his own.”

Batman looked over his shoulder, then back to the Bat-child. “I would assume.”

“Where is Agent A?”

If Jenna had been holding anything, she would have dropped it right then and there.

“That’s Agent A?” she asked Superman, who’d sheepishly emerged from the doors. “Your specialty clearance?”

Batman let out another bone-rattling sigh. It seemed specifically directed at Superman.

“You deserved an advocate,” Superman said. Jenna had the distinct impression Great Emotions were being had under Batman’s cowl.

“...I did wonder how he got up here.”

“And?” the Bat-child asked, impatient. “The hearing is still going?”

Superman visibly winced. “The hearing stopped like twenty minutes ago.”

“Why?”

A new person pushed through the double doors, giving Superman a hearty slap on the back. Nightwing. Animated in a way she’d rarely seen him.

“Agent A got banned from the Watchtower, that’s what’s up,” Nightwing said to the Bat-child. He gave Superman an even harder back slap. “Nice seeing you, Mark.”

“Nightwing.”

At Batman’s warning, Nightwing stepped away. “My bad, dude. It’s Blake, right?”

“No.”

“I feel like it’s been Blake for a while now,” Nightwing said. “That’s what you told me when we first met.”

“I told you my Kryptonian name.”

“Oh, right.” Nightwing paused. “Callum. I’m remembering now.”

“Kal.”

“Carl?”